The second week passed. I had made a checker-board so that we could have something to play together. Aaron and I would play with it for most of the day, or play other games like tic tac toe. We were starting to get used to the place and our new way of living. Jared would sometimes join in with us and play with Aaron, and his tension would alleviate just a little bit. I could tell it brought him back to playing with his brother as a kid. Despite everything... I was enjoying this relative tranquility.

But at night, when all was still... my mind would be wracked by everything we had seen. No matter how hard I tried to suppress the terror and the memories, they would breech to the surface. I'd wake up before dawn in a cold sweat, the horrible eyes of The Storm flashing in my mind or the screams of the sadist echoing through my head as I recalled all the dead bodies I had seen. Sometimes, it was hard to tell if I was dreaming or awake.

Sometimes too, Aaron would suddenly break down crying, or I'd find him with tears in his eyes. I'd wrap my arms around him, and we'd spend minutes or up to hours holding each other tightly, trying to comfort each other.

"I still... miss mom..." Aaron sobbed.

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"I know buddy... I know..."

A few days passed with this relative peace.

The whole day, Jared had seemed disturbed by something. He kept looking like he wanted to say something, but didn't. When we were lying down to sleep, he suddenly asked, "Hey Markus, you still awake?"

"Yeah, what?"

I heard him gulp, "I've been thinking... It's been raining for over two weeks, right?"

"Yeah?"

"It seems so obvious in hindsight, but we should have been worried about the flooding since we're in the basement and all, but... It's been two weeks. Two weeks of non-stop, torrential rain. Why hasn't it flooded yet? Why is the basement still fine?"

A strange, indescribable feeling twisted in the pits of my mind. I stuttered, "H-huh...? Y-yeah, that's... that is... Weird."

"Right? Honestly, now that I really think about it, this whole basement should probably be underwater, right? So then... why? Even looking outside the window, the ground's only flooded a little bit. At most, there's some big puddles. The water has to go somewhere when it hits the ground, right? Right?! So what the hell is going on? Where's the flooding?!"

I shook my head, again and again, "I don't know... I have no idea. God! What the hell is this storm?! None of this even seems real!"

We didn't speak for the rest of the night. I could tell that both of our minds were reeling, trying to find an explanation or an answer.

I'm pretty sure neither of us fell asleep that night.